Point-blank range never felt so good as Lucian fired two slugs directly into her chest, the woman’s upper half torn to shreds. She fell; Lucian ripped her blade out of his body and threw it over his shoulder as Danira spiraled toward him.
She met him with her sword this time, Lucian barely able to get his lava sword conjured in time.
“What the fuck, Danira?” he asked, a cold look on the angel’s face as she swung at him again and again, Lucian barely managing to block her attacks. “Speak to me!”
Grim Mecha appeared behind her, Lucian grimacing as he saw his creation bring his blade arm to the ready. He spun out of the way just in time for Grim Mecha to tear through Danira, the angel taken off guard.
His replica grabbed her by the wing and started hacking at her, Lucian wanting to call him off, for none of this to have happened in the first place.
Why would she betray him like that? After what they’d been through? After what he’d told her of his intentions?
A dark look came over Lucian’s face.
And he almost did it.
He almost summoned his plasma blowtorch with the goal of frying Danira for betraying him like this.
But he couldn’t.
Even as she finally got the upper hand, the angel turning and cutting into Grim Mecha’s body, Lucian knew he wasn’t going to be able to engage her like this.
Not until he knew why she had done it.
So he went with his gun that fired a tripwire, Lucian taking several shots at Danira that took her straight to the ground. She landed on the beach next to what was left of the dark-skinned angel, who’d already begun to heal. Hashul wasn’t far off, just a head at the moment, but slowly stitching back together. The other female angel had been completely dismembered, Grim Mecha and Lucian’s crows doing a number on her.
“Why?” Lucian asked, seconds away from pressing his thumb and pinky finger together. He needed a moment to process this; he was keenly aware that Danira could just show up in Old Death’s world.
Lucian’s Soul Points flashed before him:
Just over a thousand Soul Points left.
If they did come after him, he’d have to be ready.
As much as it pained Lucian to do so, especially without knowing why Danira had ambushed him, he pressed his pinky finger and thumb together, his form vanishing.
Chapter Twenty-Five: Troubled Sleep in an Endless Desert
Lucian summoned his two Grim Mechas, his replicants appearing before him, their purple eyes blazing. He’d made sure the sun was in the sky, its light now reflecting off their metallic bodies.
“Get ready for anything,” he said, the two launching into the air.
He paused for a moment in front of Grimzilla, his newest creation still on the outskirts of Old Death’s world. It had taken Lucian off guard upon appearing in the desert, but he’d quickly adjusted, immediately letting his giant mecha know that someone may be coming for him.
And why?
Even as he conjured his injurecrows, Lucian couldn’t help but play back what happened on the beach in Portland. Again and again, no matter how he tried to process it, the situation was crystal clear: Danira had betrayed him.
“No, there must be some reason…” he whispered to himself as he called his surveillance crows to him.
With a wave of his hand, Lucian gave them all side-mounted energy weapons, calling forth more of them and instructing them to form a perimeter.
Lucian then created remote sentry weapons on tripods, their forms spherical just like his crows, with weapons mounted on the bottom of the spheres and additional rotating cannons on top of the devices, retractable just like his crow’s claws.
He thought about setting them out himself, but figured he could focus on other things, like preparing for when Danira showed up with her entourage. All eight of his new sentry drones scurried away and formed a tight circle around him, ready to engage.
Lucian’s plasma blowtorch took shape in his hands, his armor reformed, and his shoulder-mounted cannon materialized into existence.
He waited.
And he waited.
Lucian couldn’t help but curse Danira under his breath, anger swelling inside as he relived all they had been through together.
“No,” he reminded himself. “It was all a cover. You’d never do something like that,” he said on her behalf, even though he couldn’t be sure that his words were true.
But then Lucian remembered what one of the twin Deaths on the Committee on Luminaries had said about the angels actually befriending their kind only to later betray them.
Lucian shook his head again and again, as if that would do anything.
He knew Danira wasn’t devious like that, but just in case she was, he had to be ready.
“Come on,” he said, looking up at the sky, expecting a golden pillar to form, the heavens to open up, angels to descend upon the desert with their blades drawn.
It wasn’t going to be an easy fight, especially with his lack of power.
But he was as ready as he would ever be, anticipating it even.
Ready to be done with it all.
Another thought came to Lucian as he waited for his opponents to arrive: he still needed to warn Yoshimi.
Azazyel was looking for her, and he had attempted to kill Lucian for refusing to give up Yoshimi’s location.
Lucian didn’t know how useful he would be in a fight against the Watcher, but if he could help in any way, he planned to do so.
Yoshimi had been the only person who hadn’t left him high and dry, and even if she was a bit reserved and hard to read at times, she continued to support Lucian in his efforts, to guide him in her own way.
And he appreciated that.
Hugin dropped before Lucian, looking like it wanted to say something.
“Speak,” he said, Hugin nodding.
“I don’t think Danira is coming,” Hugin said in Old Death’s voice.
“Change voice. Let’s go with…” Lucian shrugged. “Sure, Katy’s voice.”
“I don’t think she is coming,” Hugin said in Katy’s voice.
“She ambushed me at the beach; she knows how to get here. You know that. Hell, to be honest with you, I don’t even know how to ‘get’ here, but you understand what I’m saying. Danira knows where I am. She must know. Let’s keep it like that.”
“It didn’t seem like she wanted to kill you.”
“Were we in the same fight? She shot me,” Lucian reminded his crow, who continued to stare at him curiously. “I have fought her before, remember? I know how she acts when she’s not trying to kill me. Remember back at the psychiatric ward?”
“You should rest, Lucian. We can keep watch over you. She will not get through to you even if she does come. You need to recharge.”
“Why do I feel like I’m talking to myself right now?” Lucian asked Hugin.
“Because you are. I am an extension of you.”
“Change voices. Let’s go with a genderless voice. You know, like something a smart device would use.”
“Very well. Does this please you?” his crow asked in a voice that was neither male nor female.
“It doesn’t please me, but at least you’re not telling me that you’re part of me in my ex-girlfriend’s voice. So I am talking to myself, right?”
“You are,” Hugin said.
Lucian’s surveillance drones, injurecrows, and Grim Mechas were visible behind his spherical creations, all of them geared up and ready to go.
“Good to know.”
“And you should rest. We can handle this. If she does come, you will have plenty of time to engage Danira.”
“But I don’t want to engage her,” Lucian said, not able to hide the pain in his voice. “I don’t want her to be my enemy, and I don’t want to be her enemy. Is that too hard to ask?”
“Maybe. I don’t have the answer to that question.”
“You just want me to relax, right?”
“I want you to sleep,” H
ugin said.
“Okay,” Lucian said, sitting down in the sand. He brought his knees up to his chest, pulling them in closer with his arm.
“That is not sleeping, Lucian.”
“Fine.”
He conjured his bed, watching as it lightly settled onto the ground. Lucian stood again, and with a wave of his hand, the grains of sand attached to his robes fell away.
He laid down onto the mattress and looked up, seeing Grimzilla standing over him. His enormous creation looking stoic at that moment, ready to engage.
Hugin flew into his pane of vision. “Do you believe me now?”
“Yes,” Lucian said. “I’ll rest.”
Even with all the anguish he was experiencing, it didn’t take Lucian very long to fall asleep.
And once he was out, Lucian was greeted by a vivid dream in which he was walking around the Stop & Shop on Elliot Street, heading toward the produce section, the grocery store completely empty.
Lucian could feel that his breaths were labored, and with each step he took, he felt like he was sinking deeper into the ground. He looked down at his smartwatch, a gift from his mother, and saw that his BPM was pushing nearly two hundred.
Things started to blur.
Lucian could sense his heart beating in his body now, in his throat, and in his skull.
He reached out for one of the fruit stands and fell.
Lucian tried to pull himself up, crying for help, everything around him starting to darken, to twist in an abstract yet sinister way as dark clouds rolled across the ceiling.
It felt like his whole body was his heart now, each pump shaking him to the core, his heartbeat now painful, sending daggers through his veins and out to the tips of his fingers.
It felt like his lungs would never fill.
With each panicked breath in, Lucian tried to push himself up.
Something swelled over by the meat department, an ominous smog heading his way.
Injuresouls fell out of the fog, their jaws distended, their bandages wet with blood.
They soared over Lucian, their forms growing in size as they surrounded him, slowly latching onto him.
The pain was excruciating, but Lucian was completely helpless to stop it.
He was smothered, his ability to breathe all but disabled, his heart seconds away from exploding in his chest.
“Lucian,” he heard Old Death say.
He glanced around frantically trying to find him.
“Lucian…”
One of the injuresouls came right for Lucian’s face, its maw opening and revealing a set of razor-sharp teeth.
“Lucian!”
Lucian gasped, sucking in a deep breath as he blinked his eyes open.
He was back in the desert, and as his vision blurred back into focus, his eyes focused on a hooded man standing over him, an angel behind the man.
His predecessor.
Chapter Twenty-Six: Death Hunter Squared
“How did you…?”
Old Death threw his hood back and laughed. “My boy, I’m the one that created this godforsaken dump. Ha! You don’t think I have the power to show up whenever I’d like?”
“But what about my…” Lucian looked behind the man to see his crows hovering in the air.
“Your little robots? Clever inventions, I must say,” Old Death told Lucian as he lifted his palm toward Hugin, the crow landing in his predecessor’s palm. “But they’re not going to come after me in my own world. And besides, you gave them some sort of intelligence, did you not?”
“Yes, he did,” Hugin said in a genderless voice.
“See?” Old Death cautiously looked up at Lucian’s largest creation. “I wasn’t sure about this one, but he hasn’t given us any trouble yet.”
“That’s Grimzilla. I haven’t been able to test him out yet, at least not on an actual opponent.”
Both of Old Death’s eyebrows raised. “It’ll be an interesting day when you do.”
Lucian got to his feet, his Soul Points flashing in front of him:
His eyes then fell to the angel standing behind his predecessor, the woman known as Leliel. She wore an outfit that reminded Lucian of a cleric’s robes, her brown hair with gray streaks in it pulled back into two tight braids. Leliel’s robes stopped just below her shins, revealing a set of wings on her ankles.
“Nice to see you,” Lucian said with a nod.
She gave him a warm smile. “It’s nice to see you too, Lucian.”
“It appears you’ve gotten yourself into a bit of a bind,” Old Death said with a chuckle, the desert wind tracing through his long gray hair.
“You think? I got the Committee on Luminaries breathing down my neck and planning to torture me until I give up my mantle, and if that didn’t sting, now my angel friend has decided to attack me. And I’m not even mentioning Azazyel, who has also tried to kill me. Things have been better.”
“I see. I find it quite unfortunate to learn that a Watcher has taken an interest in you. But I suppose it comes with the territory. Azazyel has been gunning for me for quite some time. He is one of the reasons I created this place,” Old Death said with a wave of his hand. “The incompetent flapdoodle.”
“He’s pretty intense,” Lucian started to say with a grin. “But I don’t know if I would go as far as calling him a ‘flapdoodle,’ whatever the hell that is.”
“Then he’s a dull-swift mopus, if I’ve ever met one. I presume that the Committee wants to speak to me?”
“Wait, how did you know I was looking for you?” Lucian asked suddenly. “You never answered that.”
“Lucian, this is my world,” Old Death told him. “Must I remind you of this every time we meet?”
“Yeah, I learned about that. You didn’t give me your full mantle, or mantlecore, did you?”
“Only a fool would completely give away their mantle, something you should remember when the time comes. And bequeathing one’s mantle and giving their mantlecore aren’t exactly the same. No, I didn’t give my mantle to you completely, but I did give you most of it, which should count for something. The rest I have kept for myself, a part of which I originally used to create this world to keep both of us safe.”
“So you’ve been here this entire time?”
“Here and other places. There are some beautiful beaches that we visited,” he said, smiling over at Leliel. “You know, for species that can go anywhere, neither the Progeny of Light nor the Progeny of Death spend much time on tropical islands. And they should, considering the state of many of these islands, and where they will be a hundred years from now.”
“The angel knows about this place,” Lucian said. “She has been here, just so you know.”
“Then maybe she isn’t trying to kill you after all,” his predecessor said with a cheerful shrug. “Otherwise, she would be here now.”
“Maybe,” Lucian said, rubbing the place where she had blasted him.
“You have changed since we last met, my boy. Although, our last meeting was not necessarily the best time or place for two old chaps to catch up.”
“Thank you for saving me in the end,” Lucian said. “I never was able to tell you that.”
“No, thank you. It was, after all, you who came after us. I’m happy to see that you’ve grown so strong, but you still have a way to go, my boy. I’m sure you recognize that.”
“Yeah, I figured. Some extenuating circumstances have really upped my power.”
“Extenuating circumstances? Do tell.”
“Well, when I met you, I had just killed my first Grim Reaper. Anyway, her partner came after me, so I got rid of him as well, right there on Fifth Avenue if you can believe that. I was attacked by another one known as the Spaniard at the Taj Mahal. I killed him too.”
“The Spaniard was always a foozler.” His predecessor’s bushy gray eyebrows formed into a V as he looked at Lucian. “But I digress. You have become a Death Hunter then, is it?”
Lucian shook his head. “Not quite. I’m call
ing myself a Death Hunter of Death Hunters. I’ll think of a better title for that in the future. Death Hunter Squared, something catchy like that. My point is: I’m not trying to go after innocent Deaths.”
Leliel laughed. “Innocent Deaths, that’s one way to put it.”
“Yes, it is a way,” Old Death said, a grin starting to stretch the corners of his lips. “And your brother? How is the poor fellow faring?”
“It worked,” Lucian said, his eyes filling with hope that was quickly shattered by the fact that his brother was still using. “I became strong enough to kill the parasite that was attached to him. It was a tough fight. It took me and the angel I keep mentioning to do it, the same one that attacked me.”
“This angel that keeps appearing in your narrative,” Leliel said. “Do they have a name? Surely, you call them something other than ‘angel.’ Although that makes a cute pet name.”
“Danira.”
“Danira?” Leliel’s eyes went wide. “But she…”
“We have sort of become friends, well, until she attacked me. Hold on, what were you going to say?”
Leliel cleared her throat. “Of all the angels, I would least expect her to befriend the Progeny of Darkness. She has been an angel as long as I have, and both of us are from a city known as Nineveh. She was especially affected by the first war between our two species, having lost several friends and a lover to a particularly powerful Death.”
“So that’s why she has been so tough on me?”
“That, and her conviction for the cause. I must say, I don’t know how you managed to befriend her in the first place. For a couple thousand years, Danira attempted to kill all Deaths on sight. I had to help rescue her countless times, but there were an equal number of times in which she succeeded.”
“Really? She seemed very hesitant with me, even the first time we met.”
“That’s likely due to a number of reasons. One thing she probably didn’t mention to you is that she had recently rebirthed as an angel.”
“No, she told me that. She died on Valentine’s Day, 2019.”
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